


Lonely

by veryconfidentsandwichshapedfreedom



Category: Divergent - All Media Types, Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Awkward Conversations, Canon Compliant, Crack, Crack Relationships, Crack Treated Seriously, Crack and Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Sex, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, One Shot, References to Depression, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 16:36:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12172683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veryconfidentsandwichshapedfreedom/pseuds/veryconfidentsandwichshapedfreedom
Summary: "Don't you get it? He doesn't love you! She'll never love me! They're going to make us both factionless, and we're just going to sit there and take it like we always have!"





	Lonely

The roar of the chasm rushed through Drew's ears, drowning out the thump of his footsteps against the stone under his feet, his rushing heartbeat, even his own thoughts. He was not exactly pleased that Peter had sent him out here. In fact, Drew was  _terrified_  of this place, and he had been ever since he'd watched Christina being dangled over the edge.

He'd never been fond of Christina, and he'd be lying if he said he wouldn't have thrown a party if she'd fallen into the abyss, but that hadn't done a thing to pacify the absolute and complete horror of the situation. It could have been him, up there, clinging for dear life. Eric's brutal, icy gaze, the same pale color as Drew's own, could have been fixed on him. Or, worse, it could have been  _Peter_. His Peter, struggling to keep himself alive, his muscles twitching with flares of agony under his skin, sweat oozing down his reddened face, terror in his eyes.

The picture seemed all too real, and Drew's stomach lurched. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was why he was failing his way right out of Dauntless. Maybe that was why he was going where he was going on Peter's orders. 

Drew was used to being alone. No one really cared about him, not in the grand scheme of things. He was aware from the annoyance that edged in and out of Peter's voice when he spoke to him that Peter merely tolerated him because he was small and stupid and idolized Peter above all else. Molly stayed at his side because he was her tax, her punishment, her exchange for being with Peter. Drew's own mother hadn't bothered to come for Visiting Day; he assumed she was still angry at him for transferring to Dauntless and being both the second and last of her sons to abandon her.

All and all, everywhere he looked, there was no one who wanted a quiet, simple Drew for anything other than their own benefit, and no one who did more than accepted him as a fact of life, an obnoxious inconvenience like a gnat or the distant bark of an alarmed, desperate dog.

But that couldn't stop Drew from being scared of solitude. Real solitude, not being surrounded by people who wouldn't care if he died tomorrow, but being surrounded by nothing and no one at all. Maybe that was why he followed Peter. Even if Peter didn't reciprocate the feelings even a fraction as strong as what Drew felt for him, Peter was always there, a solid rock for Drew to lean on. It didn't matter that Peter disliked him. He was there, and that was what Drew saw in his master.

Drips of moisture clung to Drew's lashes, sagging and fat, and overwhelmingly clear, but distorting everything in his vision that found itself in the path of the beads' reflections. He blinked them away, in three solid flicks of his eyelids that only seemed to make everything wetter, and blurrier, and more uncomfortable. Between the noise and the heavy air that weighed down his lungs, making them feel like they were made out of sodden cardboard, he knew he was closer to his target than he'd been before, because where the chasm was, Al would be too. And with that, being closer to Al, came being closer to pleasing Peter.

A flurry of warmth exploded through his chest as he imagined how proud Peter would be when he came back with Al, ready and willing to bring into action Peter's schemes; through Drew's mind flashed leaf green eyes, twinkling with pride, a crooked smirk, and wide, heaving shoulders shaking with the anticipation that flowed with Peter's every breath. It still made Drew happier than anything to know he was useful to Peter, even if Peter wasn't as fond of him as he wanted someone like Peter to be.

Frigid mist stung at the tip of Drew's nose. He allowed himself to widen his eyes. He didn't need to be walking off the edge of the chasm any time soon. Gingerly, checking everything once and twice and then once again, he combed his surroundings. They were alone. It was him, and Al, who was parked at the ledge with his feet dangling off into nothingness, a wide black boulder peering down into the void.

The urge to scream to the heavens and share his satisfied victory with the entire world clawed at the back of Drew's throat with long, jagged talons. This couldn't have been any more perfect than it already was. There wasn't a soul around to hear him and Al negotiating over the offer. Drew would be able to bring Al back to Peter and fulfill the orders perfectly, not a hair out of place. He didn't doubt that he'd at least be able to convince Al to meet with Peter. Peter didn't trust Drew with disclosing the full terms of the plot to Al, anyway, and for just reasons, because Peter knew Drew was at least twice as stupid as he could confirm to himself, and, for the most part, Drew agreed with Peter. Best to leave the hard work to the pros, despite the joy it'd bring him to do that task for Peter, too.

Drew took a step forward, beginning to close the distance between him and Al, the distance that separated Peter's fantasies from reality, the distance that sent an ache through Drew's chest. Peter. For Peter. All of this, for Peter.

"Al?" he called. He cringed at the sound of his own voice; against the rumbling of the churning rapids that ran through the foot of the chasm, he sounded weak and small and insignificant. It was a reminder of what he truly was, hidden where he'd never have expected to find it.

But Al was weak too, a low-ranked initiate just like him. At least weakness could find comfort in weakness.

Al turned his head, in a slow, awkward way, catching Drew in one dark eye. Even with the gap between them, Drew saw the creases form in Al's brow as he furrowed it in confusion. 

"Leave me alone."

The confusion morphed into anger, hatred, the dull and heavy kind that Drew was familiar with. Sometimes he felt indignant that Peter didn't value him as much as he should have. That left him sad, and the sorrow weighed him down, tugging him to the floor when his shoulders could no longer support the weight, and when he couldn't fight the sorrow, it grew and changed into bitter cynicism. It was all too real, wanting to avoid the world and wallow in his own self-loathing.

Drew sighed. He didn't have much of a choice in the matter. He wanted nothing more than to leave Al be. Drew would hate being bothered if he felt like Al, so why should he be teasing Al's gentle, pleasant personality to snap? But Peter wanted what Peter wanted, and Drew would be the one to give it to him, at any cost, whether it be regret or emotional distress or one of Al's massive fists slammed into his nose in a hard, tight arc that left him gurgling on his own blood as it oozed down his straining windpipe.

"No, hey, dude," Drew said. "I'm not here to bother you. I just came with a message."

Al looked away, back into the blackness of the chasm. He groaned, so deep and gruff that it reverberated through his chest, and Drew could hear it clearly, despite the bellows of the chasm being loud enough to drown almost everything away.

"If it's from  _Peter_ , I don't want it."

There was a sharp intensity in Al's words that made Drew wince. A shard of ice struck his spine, freezing him in the cringe he'd pulled, chin touching his chest, fingers trembling, eyes directed toward the floor, shoulders slumped more than usual. Maybe this was a mistake. As godly as Peter was, he was not infallible. Perhaps Al knew what he wanted, and was willing to chase nothing but, and neither Drew nor Peter had accounted for that. Maybe there would be no temporary moment of desperation in Al's weakness after all.

But there was no reason not to probe the issue further. Not when Drew had come so far and promised so much. For now, their fates—Drew's, Al's, and Peter's—were intertwined, tangled up in a knot. Every event now would determine their destinies. This moment could be the difference, Drew decided, between Peter succeeding in Dauntless and fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a leader, and him barely making it through, and between Drew living at Peter's side for the rest of his life, maybe even moving in with him and being able to win Peter's genuine respect, everything he'd wanted to get from Peter since their first encounter bestowed upon Drew the intense, undying desire to find a real friendship, and him ending up destitute in the streets without anything to live for, without food, without companionship, without  _Peter_ —

Drew had to continue. He could not allow Al the release of freedom. He could not back down.

And there was hard anger swelling in his chest at what Al had said, the derogatory snip in his low voice when he'd said Peter's name. How dare he say anything bad about Peter. Drew had sacrificed so much. He was sacrificing  _right_ _now_. He had bled for Peter, and committed crimes for Peter, and abandoned everything he'd ever known to stay at Peter's side. 

He no longer cared about what was at stake. He no longer cared about anything but the lava sizzling in his veins, and the tears brimming in his eyes, and the cold lump in his throat that was so large he could barely take a breath around it. 

All that mattered was that Al had said the wrong thing. Peter deserved none of that disrespect, none of that malice. Peter was worthy of everything. Peter was beautiful. Peter was a god. Peter was the only thing Drew could feel lonely without. Al could not, would not, go unpunished.

"There's nothing wrong with Peter, you stupid coward! At least he's braver than you, and smarter, and stronger, and hotter—" 

That felt to be more words than Drew had spoken in the past year. It had flooded from him all at once, like a tsunami. Maybe he wasn't as quiet as he thought. Maybe there had always been pressure building within him, right beneath his sternum, getting tighter and hotter with every passing minute, every passing day, and every word he had left unspoken had stuck itself on until it became a conglomeration of the rage birthed from all the minor injustices Drew had ever tolerated, ready to explode into a barrage of assertiveness that came all in one go. Maybe if he'd stood up to Peter before, he wouldn't be losing it at Al now. 

But Drew knew he was a coward. He was just as bad as Al. 

At least Drew held the right beliefs about Peter. That made him better, at least in his own mind. 

"He stabbed a guy in the face, Drew. He hurts people, and he likes it. I can't..." Al froze, voice wispy as he huffed a shallow breath. "I can't  _do_  that. I'm not like you. I know what he wants from me, and it's something I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did."

Drew was torn between his innate instinct to follow Peter's orders and entice Al further, what he knew he should have done, what Peter ordered him to do, and his increasing desire to break down and scream and explode into a raging storm of fiery wrath that would scald Al's skin into a minefield of charred black ash and seeping blisters, the only retribution that could be labeled as fair, the only pain that could truly be equal to the splitting, throbbing agony that was pressing against Drew's sternum. He couldn't stand to hear such words, such accusations, directed at Peter. Perhaps, if he'd had time to prepare, or if he had his friends behind him, he'd have been able to ignore them and brush the remarks off as Al lashing out in his depression. Perhaps he'd have pity for Al. Perhaps he'd feel something other than disgust and indignance and the bulging swell of the lump in his throat that had been there for a while, but only seemed to grow and grow, never ebbing away, even the slightest bit.

The pause that stiffened the air around them was not silent, far from it, but it felt emptier than anything Drew had ever known. There was so much he wanted to say, but so much he couldn't.

But maybe Peter's honor meant more than his commands. If Peter were here, he would be defending his own honor. For Drew to say nothing would be a blatant act of betrayal toward the person he loved most.

Just when it felt that the protests floating like a warship atop the endless ocean of his hot, budding tears would be the last of him, Drew could hold back no longer; his dam was challenged, then overpowered by the force behind it and left collapsed and divided into great jagged sheets of stone that flowed out his mouth as debris, victims of the endless flood of everything they had been trusted to hold back. 

"Peter did  _nothing_ wrong!" Drew hissed. The venom in his own voice shocked him. He was ruining his chance. He was failing Peter. But try as he might, reach as he did to pull the emergency brake that would turn his mouth off, he could do nothing; it was too late. "You're just jealous that you can't be like him. Just like how you're jealous of the Stiff, and we all know it!"

"If I'm jealous of Tris, that makes you jealous of Peter."

"...What?"

"You called him  _hot_  less than a minute ago."

"And you're implying what, exactly?"

"I'm implying that we're not all that different," Al said. He halted, glancing at Drew, then back to the chasm, focusing the same place deep down there he'd been watching when Drew had arrived, as if there were some sort of light or object for him to affix his attention to. He glanced back to Drew again. "I don't even know why I'm doing this. You've done nothing but terrorize my friends since we got here. But... my friends don't feel like my friends anymore. You know that feeling?"

Someone crumpled Drew's intestine into a tight, knotted ball. That was exactly how he'd always felt. He liked Molly, sure, thought she was funny, loyal, a person with some good concealed behind her twisted yellow teeth and fat, crooked nose and cruel eyes, but that wasn't his true lament. If she didn't want to really be his friend, he'd get over it. But he  _adored_ Peter. He would have given his life for Peter for no reason at all, if Peter wanted him to. He would have sliced his own hand off and dipped the bleeding, wounded stump into a pot of salt and acid if Peter asked. He was willing to suffer through anything for someone who didn't so much as offer a pat on the back or a peck on the—

Fuck.

Drew realized what Al had meant earlier; it hit him in the gut first, like someone swinging a sack of bricks and iron into the softest parts of his belly. For a moment, he was back in the ring, being punched in the gut by Peter, his best friend, his idol, over and over and over again.

He remembered getting  _hard_ during the ordeal. At the time, he'd thought it was a side effect of the stress of the fight, a glitch in his faulty human brain, and he'd been in too much pain to really care. Now, he wasn't so sure. Maybe he'd liked being dominated by Peter so directly, been thrilled by Peter hurting him and exhibiting complete control over his safety, his health, his body. Complete control over him himself.

Maybe he felt more for Peter than what he'd ever realized before.

Maybe he'd realized it before and repressed it, hid it away, out of shame for who he was.

That sounded about right.

Drew took a breath; the wetness clung to the chasm air, giving it a scent all its own, one he wasn't quite sure how to describe. It reminded him of Peter. Peter had led him out here one evening to talk about what they'd done to Edward. Being alone with Peter, the way he was with Al now... it had been everything he'd ever dreamed of. They'd stood there, leaned against the railing for a while, laughing, smiling, occasionally cracking jokes about Edward and Myra incorporating Edward's  _disability_ , for lack of a better term, into their sex life. Drew had felt a blazing heat rise in his cheeks, like someone had lit a match by his skin, and felt his palms growing clammy and oozing droplets of sweat down his fingers, but he'd ignored it at the time, unsure what it all meant and a million times more interested in being with Peter.

"I know I hang around Molly and Peter," Drew felt himself say, by reflex, involuntarily, if only a failed attempt by his body to fill the silence that seemed to only get louder and louder with every thought that crossed his mind. "But Peter just likes me because I do what he wants, and I don't think Molly likes me at all."

"It's not like that. There's no doubt in my mind that my friends like me, it's just... I  _feel_  like they don't. You know, if they like me, why are they outranking me? It's like they want me to be factionless." Al hung his head, flicked his pupils to meet Drew's, then to a puddle on the floor, and back to Drew again, as he'd done with the chasm not long ago. Did maintaining eye contact hurt him physically, or did Al think someone going to jump out and punch him if they saw him looking at Drew? Was the whole thing a set-up? Drew doubted Al had told one single lie his entire life. That would be considerably hard to maintain for him, explaining the nervousness that radiated off of him in thick, choking waves. 

But he was sure there was something else to it, something he hadn't foreseen. He was just unsure what it was.

"It's a dog-eat-dog life we all lead," Drew said. "Someone has to be eaten, and I guess that's us."

He allowed himself the spot next to Al, not minding the moisture that soaked through the seat of his pants as he sat down. It was nothing compared to where he was. His belly lurched at the sight of the drop; his stomach seemed to be stuck sideways in the hollow part of his throat. Oh, Lord, he hated this. 

Pale hands, caked with dirt and mottled with specks of dried blood, clung to the stone of the ledge in the unoccupied space between Al's thigh and Drew's hip. The knuckles were tensed, tendons bursting into visibility through the skin, and every joint, every single muscle, was primed, full strength flowing in like a shot of pure energy. Whoever it was, wherever they had come from, they were determined to live. 

Then Drew recognized the hands beneath the coatings of grime. He recognized the tattoo that adorned the beefy forearm, and the neatly trimmed nails, and the length of the fingers, and the fair skin...

Peter.

Drew grabbed his wrists and dragged him to the surface, to safety; tears filled his eyes as he met Peter's lips, brushed their warmth and their softness against his own. Relief. Peter was safe. 

 _They_  were safe.

 _Together_.

"Hey, are you okay?" Al's deep voice boomed hard in Drew's ear. It sounded peculiar with the high, warbling notes of concern swept across it, making it seem as if Al were trying to speak in a falsetto and half-assing it the way both he and Drew had done with everything else. Drew considered the fact that he was half-assing something rightthis instant, as he lived and breathed. At least the positive interaction, something absent from Al's life at the moment, from what Drew could gather, might convince Al to follow Drew's suggestion and visit Peter.

"I-I'm... I'm fine."

Al knew. Al had figured it out already. Al wouldn't mind at all, if Drew were to tell him. But Drew just wasn't ready, not yet. He wasn't sure he'd ever be ready to admit that his homosexual tendencies and his cowardice, the two parts of himself that he hated the most, had merged into one revolting being that had been catapulted into the world by an evil force that sought only to terrorize him.

"I don't like the chasm either," Al said gently, softly, just loud enough to be audible over the sound of the river. "Not after... you know."

It was a reference to the same incident. The Christina incident. Drew smiled without intending to; the gesture felt awkward, a stranger to his muscles, unfamiliar to his mind. He'd never been happy except when he was with Peter. But now he was inches away from Al, talking to him in a way they never had in sixteen years of growing up together, and he felt warm and bright and free.

For the first time ever, he felt free. He didn't need Molly. He didn't need Peter. He didn't need Al. He needed no one but himself and nothing but the steady rhythm of his own heart. He could do what he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted, and right now, he was choosing to neglect what Peter had asked of him and sit with Al, wallowing in their sorrows together.

"Hey, I know what you meant, but what did you really mean by all that," Drew paused to bend his fingers into air quotes, "'we're not all that different' bullshit?"

"We both want more than one thing we can't have," Al replied, a stiffness in his voice, his body, that made a frost spread through Drew's bones. "You're in love with Peter. I don't think anyone doesn't have that figured out by now. We both want to be in Dauntless. And I... I know she doesn't want me, but... I like Tris."

"Can't say I'm surprised. I always knew you had bad taste."

"Shut up!"

Drew flinched, dropping his gaze; when Peter told him to shut up, it was a display of brutality, an exhibition of dominance and control, and he always submitted to the guilt. A pang of fear shook through the pit of his gut. He was sure that Al wouldn't hurt him, but he couldn't help but feel upset. He hadn't wanted to be scolded today.

But then he did something he never would have done had Al been Peter and he been just boring old Drew. He peered sheepishly back up at Al, and when he spotted the wide grin that had blossomed across Al's pink, chubby cheeks, the discomfort in his belly dissipated, first as a mist, a steam, and then, all at once.

Al's hand, large enough to wrap fully around Drew's wrist once, grabbed for Drew's hand, a gesture of comfort, of solidarity. Al was just teasing. The trembling horror, child of his empathy, that filled his words confirmed that.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I didn't-"

"It's okay. It's just... when Peter snaps at me like that, I want to obey, and think as badly about myself as he thinks of me." 

There was a brief pause.

"Tris is trying to get me kicked out of Dauntless. Peter treats you like the dirt under his boots. And... We're copies of each other. I couldn't have been more right earlier, could I?"

"What?"

Al's hand squeezed Drew's tighter, harder, compressing his fingers together and sending sparks of anguish through his joints, down the tendons that held his wrist to his forearm.

"Don't you get it? He doesn't love you! She'll never love me! They're going to make us both factionless, and we're just going to sit there and take it like we always have!"

Every sentence Al spoke seemed to get more and more strained, breaking in random places; he was choking on his own intensity, his own terror. Drew swallowed. The sudden increase in pinkness in Al's face hadn't been coincidental, or the result of the algid air. He was about to cry.

Al sniffed, deep, the kind of sniff that only ever appeared to clear the path for tears. Drew knew the sound of Al's crying too well. He'd done it every night without fail since they'd arrived at Dauntless. Drew had logged hours in the silence that was a mere carrier for Al's sobbing far faster than he had anticipated he would, because Drew himself had gotten very little sleep. Before the simulations, he'd lie awake all night, unable to sleep for the hollowness in his chest, unable to sleep for the emptiness in his bed, in his arms, unable to sleep for the lump in the next bed over that was Peter.

He'd tried to sneak into Peter's bed at least nine times over that span; Peter had only let him in once, the night after Edward had been stabbed, and even when he was riding that high, and had the highest opinion of Drew that he'd had in years, possibly ever, he'd turned away from Drew, stolen the sheet, and slept on the edge of the bed. Rejection was consistent, from Peter, even when Peter himself was being inconsistent. Every time he was rejected, Drew had told himself that he was just scared of the dark, or trying to get away from Al's relentless noise, given that Peter's bed was further away than his own.

But he knew now that was a cover. He should have known then. He wanted Peter inside him. He wanted to be inside Peter. He wanted to lie there in Peter's arms for hours, until the sun came up, and if the world would have allowed it, he would have stayed there for eternity, leaving his spot snuggled up to Peter's chest only to fetch Peter's meals, lap or palm at his hardened cock, and pamper him however he saw fit for himself.

And after the simulations began, Drew lied awake all night, curled on top of his sheets in the fetal position, chin to knee, because he was terrified of having Peter in his arms. He was terrified of the only thing he had seen in the simulations that had been enough to break him, been enough to leave him on the ground, staring into the sky for what felt to be hours. He was terrified of blood and empty green eyes and a motionless chest and the lack of purpose he felt.

He was terrified of finding Peter dead. And he didn't want to think about anything, because everything linked back, somehow, to his visions of himself clutching Peter's still, lifeless form. 

Drew was terrified of losing Peter.

Al was terrified of Tris herself.

They were terrified of the people they loved more than anyone else, and those people didn't even love them back. That was a lonely way to live.

At least, Drew thought, feeling his lower lip tremble, a reaction to the impact of his own gratitude at feeling wanted by someone, and the impact of Al's sobs being more than background noise, something he'd have to truly experience, they could be lonely together.

Drew leaned his head against Al's shoulder, tried his damnedest to grip Al's hand back around the vicelike hold it had on his own, and together, they grieved for what they were not to have and what they would soon lose.


End file.
